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Visa rule change allows spouses to work

Green card delays create problems for legal immigrants, employers

Immigration bills to ease green card wait times have been drafted several times, but ultimately failed to pass U.S. Congress. The immigration issue is now front and center in Michigan, as Gov. Rick Snyder is asking the federal government for 50,000 visas for highly skilled legal immigrants. See story

2014 American Dreamers

In many ways, metro Detroit was built by immigrants. They left their homelands to escape war and persecution, to get an education or to seek more economic opportunity.

The American Dreamers profiled in this section have built professions and businesses across industries as diverse as they are, from restaurants to automotive, life sciences, venture capital and social services.

But their stories share a common theme: Hard work and persistence pay off.

A change in a specific federal work visa rule will benefit metro Detroit economically, said University of Detroit Mercy School of Law Professor David Koelsch, who also is director of the law school's Immigration Law Clinic and the Asylum Law Clinic.

The Obama administration is relaxing a prohibition that prevents spouses of workers here on the H-1B non-immigrant visa from working.

The H-1B is targeted at highly skilled workers — typically Indians working in information technology — that the U.S. deems in short supply, and it allows them to stay up to six years. H-1B visa holders also can apply for a permanent alien resident status, known as the green card.

Allowing spouses to work will prompt more skilled H-1B visa holders to stay here rather than return to India, Koelsch said.

"Indian wives are educated and don't want to sit around in Troy all day," he said. "They want to work, advance careers and lead more fulfilling lives."

Immigrants at the other end of the financial spectrum can actually have a greater economic impact than temporary foreign-born high-tech workers, Koelsch said.

Less-skilled immigrants, many of them undocumented, stay in Detroit long term, he said. They put down roots, pay taxes, have kids and have a longer impact versus the Indian immigrants who often return home after five or six years.

"India is a decent place to live, and if you have U.S. work experience, you can punch your own ticket there," Koelsch said.